Buhari needs caution on foreign experts’ advice

IF he is capable of it, sooner or later, President Muhammadu Buhari will have to determine just how poignantly and piquantly he will be his own man in an increasingly complex and interdependent world. Since he has not dared to map out or articulate an inspiring and lucid course of action for his presidency beyond fighting corruption and pacifying the restive Northeast, many analysts, some of them clearly Western orthodox, neocolonial, or even reactionary, will step in grandly to fill the void. In September, nearly four months after he was sworn in and was yet to propound a definitive economic plan, JP Morgan, the American multinational banking and financial services holding company, warned of its plan to delist Nigeria from its Government Bond Index–Emerging Market (GBI–EM). The reasons, as paraphrased by a newspaper piece on the subject, were that, “currency controls in the country were making bond market transactions too complex to meet its rules,” and that “foreign investors who track the GBI-EM series continue to face challenges and uncertainty while transacting in the naira due to the lack of a fully functional two-way Foreign exchange market and limited transparency.” The delisting was done in October after it became obvious the Buhari government would not budge for reasons it has neither fully explained nor satisfactorily defended.

Late in October, an international fellow at the prestigious United States think tank, Council on Foreign Relations, suggested five ways in which the Buhari government could proceed in presiding over the affairs of Nigeria and midwifing the change the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) campaigned on. In a synopsis published in the Washington Post newspaper, the fellow, Matthew Page, posited as follows:

1. Carefully clean house: Buhari’s reform agenda probably faces its greatest threat from corrupt, old-school politicians within his own All Progressives Congress (APC) party. Buhari should neutralize some of the APC’s shadiest figures, who could emerge as “veto players.” Examples of these kleptocrats are not hard to find. The U.S. Department of Justice has accused one sitting APC governor of helping former dictator Sani Abacha steal at least $458 million from state coffers. Likewise, both APC candidates in the upcoming Kogi and Bayelsa State governorship elections have been indicted by Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency.
2. Pare down the parastatals: Buhari has an opportunity to realize immediate savings by eliminating or merging some of Nigeria’s more than 500 federal parastatals and boards. Parastatals are government-operated companies or commercial agencies. Pundits allege that past presidents used parastatal appointments to cultivate national political allies and provincial cronies.  These institutions, which range from the lucrative to the modest to the moribund, have long been a cornerstone of corruption in Nigeria.
3. Tame the white elephants: Buhari’s apparent determination to revive two “white elephant” economic sectors  domestic oil refineries and steel mills  worry industry experts.  Nigeria is replete with these kinds of investment projects where state-owned enterprises are funded for long periods even if they incur huge losses.  For decades, Nigerian leaders have thrown good money after bad at these projects because white elephant projects yield short-term political gains.
4. Rein in subnational debt: As Buhari tries to put Nigeria’s public finances back in order, the balance sheets of the country’s 36 states are sinking deeper into the red. In a decentralized federal system like Nigeria’s, state budgets typically affect the lives of ordinary citizens more than federal spending does.

All but a few states generate minimal revenue outside of their monthly allocation of Nigeria’s anemic oil income.  While Nigeria’s national debt is still relatively low by global standards, fiscal federalism means that if states default on their debts, the federal government foots the bill.  Buhari’s reasons for watching state borrowing should also be personal: One of the stated reasons for the 1983 military coup that first brought him to power was runaway borrowing by state governors.

5. Legislate for the long run. Nigeria will need to feel the “Buhari Effect” (the sense, evident in a recent New York Times article, that there is a new sheriff in town) long after the president’s tenure is over. The best way for him to protect his legacy is to partner with the National Assembly to enact legislation enshrining key reforms.  With few other politicians like him on the horizon, Buhari should put his legacy in writing.

While some of these suggestions are sound and point evidently to a few needling problems Nigeria and in particular the Buhari presidency must contend with, overall, they are gratuitous and even condescending. More advice will doubtless come in the following weeks as the government continues to demonstrate a lack of surefootedness. President Buhari had a few weeks after assuming office, and in defence of his slow and ‘methodical’ process of assembling a team and determining his course of action, argued that he needed to develop his government’s raison d’etre and put in place a reformed and ingenious framework of governance before appointing ministers. He called that framework his template, and the ministers, noisemakers, a facetious label to mask the paradox of his deterministic model of governance. Months later, except perhaps to him and his aides, few Nigerians are sure what that template is, not to talk of understanding its raison d’etre.

If anything, however, every step he has taking so far, including his plaintive cry for international help to support Nigeria’s tottering economy, points to a presidency clearly unable to conceive the radical reform programmes and policies needed for these times. More crucially and worrisomely, both in outlook and in statements, President Buhari has not yet demonstrated a fundamental grasp of the depth of Nigeria’s problems, not to talk of envisioning the country’s leadership of the black race and its place in the world. It seems in fact that, contrary to his bravado, especially regarding his perception of the insignificance of ministers and the overarching and contradistinctive importance of permanent secretaries, he is waiting for the former to help conceive or at least fine-tune his policies and ideas. If he is to succeed, he must be clear in his mind what kind of interventions he expects from the so-called helpers. Their ideas and interventions must fit in tightly with his own, their outer orbit to his centre of gravity.

In the short run, the security situation will not get better; and the economy could even go into a tailspin if care is not taken. The more pressing the problems, and their many worrisome manifestations such as unemployment and upsurge in crime, the more desperate he will be tempted to be. But desperation often engenders panic measures. So, while he is still in control, while he still has the initiative, it is time for President Buhari to make up his mind what he wants, what kind of society he wishes to bequeath to future generations, and how he hopes to bring these about. The tasks are by no means easy, as the Washington Post article argues, but given the superabundance of integrity which he possesses and advertises, he appears to be more qualified than many of his predecessors, bar one.

So far, he has only begun to tackle a part of the country’s security nightmare — Boko Haram insurgency. He has done pretty little on the common but equally vicious crimes of kidnapping and robbery. Indeed, he has offered no initiative. Except the desultory effort to knock corruption into a cocked hat and the Central Bank of Nigeria’s sometimes bewildering effort to rein in monetary policy snafus, there is little in the Buhari presidency anyone can describe as consistent and practical economic policy. The cabinet is full of lawyers, when it should be filled with social and economic engineers, bold and animated thinkers eager to midwife the abundant life and utopia which Nigerians have always dreamt of. But the task is not impossible, and President Buhari can yet make a success of the entire endevour if he can manage to be careful with and cautious of the advice and influences of the so-called global and Western orthodox gurus whose interests may lie elsewhere, and whose arcane ideas do not take cognisance of the peculiar and cultural underpinnings of Nigeria